Space News from SpaceDaily.Com brings the space industry professional daily news from the frontier, with contract, bid, launch and on-orbit satellite news as it happens. 05-NOV-09 en-us Salt Lake City UT (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - The University of Utah will celebrate the initial observations or "first light" of its new $860,000 research telescope in southwest Utah during a Wednesday, Nov. 11, symposium and reception on the Salt Lake City campus.]]> Pasadena CA (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - The Cassini spacecraft has weathered the Monday, Nov. 2, flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus in good health and has been sending images and data of the encounter back to Earth. Cassini had approached Enceladus more closely before, but this passage took the spacecraft on its deepest plunge yet through the heart of the plume shooting out from the south polar region. Scientists are eagerly sifting through the results.]]> Los Angeles (AFP) Nov 3, 2009 - Once regarded as a quirky fad for nerds wearing cardboard spectacles, 3D films are enjoying a mainstream renaissance and this time the medium is here to stay, entertainment industry experts say.]]> College Station TX (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms, and Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A and M professor of atmospheric sciences, has been awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather.]]> Stanford, Calif. (UPI) Nov 4, 2009 - U.S. and Welsh researchers say they've obtained a detailed picture of the early universe using a telescope in the Antarctic.]]> MOffett Field CA (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - A NASA spacecraft's third and final flyby of Mercury gives scientists, for the first time, an almost complete view of the planet's surface and provides new scientific findings about this relatively unknown world.]]> Pasadena CA (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - Before our planets found their way to the stable orbits they circle in today, they wiggled and jostled about like unsettled children. Now, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a young star with evidence for the same kind of orbital hyperactivity. Young planets circling the star are thought to be disturbing smaller comet-like bodies, causing them to collide and kick up a huge halo of dust.]]> Edmonton, Canada (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - University of Alberta physics professor Craig Heinke has solved a mystery that lies 11,000 light years beyond Earth. A supernova (or exploding star), 20 times heavier than our sun blasted apart, leaving behind a small core that has puzzled astronomers since its discovery in 1999.]]> Boston MA (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object.]]> Paris, France (ESA) Nov 05, 2009 - ESA's comet chaser Rosetta will swing by Earth for the last time on 13 November to pick up energy and begin the final leg of its 10-year journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA's European Space Operations Centre will host a media briefing on that day.]]> Washington DC (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - Blasts of radiation brighter than a trillion suns. Charged particles with the energy of a well-thrown baseball. Jets of magnetized plasma streaming across intergalactic space. What do these have in common? Their energy is derived from black holes.]]> Huntsville AL (SPX) Nov 04, 2009 - The MESSENGER spacecraft's third flyby of the planet Mercury has given scientists, for the first time, an almost complete view of the planet's surface and revealed some dramatic changes in Mercury's comet-like tail.]]> Washington (AFP) Nov 3, 2009 - China's military has made dramatic progress in space over the past decade and the goals of its program remain unclear, a top American general said on Tuesday.]]>